UN to expand support here

United Nations Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed has announced that the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund is ready to expand its support to Liberia as the country transitions from peacekeeping to peacebuilding.

Speaking Tuesday at an informal meeting of Liberia’s Peacebuilding Configuration in New York, DSG Mohammed said ” the Peace Building Fund has been a committed partner to Liberia, lending a support of 10 million dollars in 2017 and is ready to expand its support”. She however said much more is needed from development partners to realize Liberia’s ambitions.

A dispatch from Liberia’s Permanent Mission to the UN quotes Madam Mohammed as saying that a UN Country team headed by a strengthened Regional Coordinator will take over from the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) to ensure a more supportive and responsive presence in the country.

Noting that “peace can only be sustained with sustainable development”, DSG Mohammed said the principle funding mechanism for the UN engagement with Liberia will be the Multi Partner Trust Fund, to be managed at the Country level with the Government as Co-Chair. “It’s part of ongoing reforms at the UN and such collaboration will reduce the fragmentation and duplication of development assistance and ensure the achievement of the 2030 agenda and sustain peace in Liberia” she stressed.

The Deputy Secretary General disclosed that Liberia’s new plan for national development 2018-2024 will bring together all Liberia’s peacebuilding priorities and efforts to achieve the SDGs, making it much easier to produce a core for investment. “Strengthened multilateralism for us means there is much better environment for bilateral arrangements to support government in what they want to do and also bringing in business and ensuring Civil Society and other key actors play their parts” she asserted.

In response, Liberia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Israel Davies thanked the United Nations and other partners including the Economic Community of West African States, the African Union and the European Union, for the support over the years.

Mr. Davies welcomed plans for the tripartite engagement involving Liberia, the United Nations and the Peacebuilding Commission as part of Liberia’s New Development Plan for mutual accountability and hailed the establishment of the Multi-partner Trust Fund as a pragmatic way to go.

The meeting of Liberia’s peacebuilding configuration precedes the “Liberia Moment” a series of high-level events marking the end of UNMIL’s peacekeeping mandate in Liberia later this month.